People called her Girl, or Nobody, or Hush, because she had never made a sound and no one had ever given her a real name. The night the snow fell purple over the peaks, she packed a crust of bread and started climbing. Under the mountain lived the dragon Vesper, who did not hoard gold. She hoarded names, stacked in the dark like cold little coins. The girl wanted just one. Her own.

Warm air breathed out of the cave mouth. The girl stepped inside and saw thousands of names glowing on the walls, each one a tiny silver coin. At the center coiled Vesper, huge and patient. 'A visitor,' the dragon rumbled. 'Most run. You climbed. Tell me your name.' The girl opened her mouth and nothing came out.

Instead of trying to speak again, the girl picked up a sharp stone and scratched one word into the cave floor: WHY. Vesper blinked, surprised. 'Why do I hoard names? Because a name is the truest thing a person owns. Hold enough of them, and you hold a piece of everyone.'

The girl wrote one more thing: YOU LONELY? Vesper recoiled as if struck. In all her centuries of hoarding the names of others, no one had ever asked about hers. Slowly the dragon nodded, and a single warm tear hissed against the cold stone floor.

The girl reached up and gently touched the dragon's huge snout. She pointed at the bright coin Vesper had buried, the dragon's own name, then back at Vesper: wear it, don't hide it. Trembling, Vesper took her name back into herself and felt like somebody again. Then she carved a fresh coin for the girl and pressed it to her heart. The two walked out together, and neither was ever called Nobody again.